ARGYLE — Sanger head coach Chuck
Galbreath and his staff knew there would be some growing pains experienced
early in the 2012 season, especially on the offensive side of the football
where the Indians are making the shift to a version of the run-based Wing-T
after slinging the ball around for the past three years behind quarterback Dane
Evans, who is now at Tulsa.

But in Friday night’s game against
Liberty Christian, the Indians’ offense hit a new low as they managed only 118
total yards and eight first downs as Sanger committed four turnovers en route
to a 38-6 Liberty Christian win at Bowles Stadium.

“It’s a combination of a lot of things,”
Galbreath said about the blowout loss. “We’re a young football team, and we’re
a young football team that’s injured right now, and we’re a young football team
that’s making too many mistakes right now.”

Sanger was doomed by turnovers from the
beginning.

The second offensive play of the night
was an attempted pitch from Sanger quarterback Wyatt Broxson, but it was
swatted away by a penetrating Weldon Whittle and recovered by Morgan Engle to
give the Warriors the ball at Sanger’s 21-yard line.

The Warriors needed only three plays to
capitalize with a 4-yard touchdown pass from Foster Ford to Graham Richardson.

“Creating turnovers really gave us a
chance to do some things offensively and take some chances early on,” Liberty
Christian head coach Greg Price said. “Our kids really showed up to play
tonight.”

The bad luck continued for the Indians
(0-2), and Liberty made them pay.

After the Warriors (2-0) scored on a
32-yard catch-and-run by Hunter Griffith, Sanger fumbled the ensuing kickoff,
giving Liberty the ball at the Sanger 22-yard line.

A holding penalty put the Warriors back
and they were forced into a 49-yard field-goal attempt from kicker Mikeal Sroka
that ended up short. But Sanger didn’t get out of the woods.

On the Indians’ first play of the
ensuing drive, Derek Shelby was hit and had the ball popped loose after a
4-yard gain right into the arms of Liberty’s Christian Burks, who returned the
fumble 41 yards to the end zone to send the Warriors to the halftime break with
a 28-6 lead.

After last week’s 40-37 win over
Springtown that came down to the final seconds, Price said he was happy to see
his defense take control of Friday’s game early, and maintain its dominance
throughout the night, holding Sanger to only 77 yards on the ground.

“Last week coming down to the wire like
that, I was happy with how our defense played and giving us a short field and
executing,” Price said. “They were in control of the game pretty early on.”

That short field Liberty’s defense
provided for its offense was also a backbreaker to Sanger’s defense, which is
being counted on to lead the Indians while they adjust to their new offensive
system.

The Warriors put up 210 rushing yards
using a bevy of runners and were led by senior Camron Cornett, who rushed for
63 yards on eight carries — all in the first half. Ford, who is the son of
Sanger assistant coach Steve Ford, completed 8 of 19 passes for 79 yards,
including two touchdown passes to Richardson and Hunter Griffith.

“Any time you put your defense back out
there on a short field, at some point they’re gonna break down and begin to
give up big plays, and that’s what happened,” Galbreath said. “We’ve seen that
the last two weeks. Offensively, we have to help them by moving the football
and giving them better opportunities to get off the field and play fewer plays
and play on their end instead of on our end.”

The Warriors will face Celina next
weekend, while Sanger will square off with rival Pilot Point, which is back in
Class 2A after spending the past two seasons as district foes in District 9-3A.

“Our thought from Day 1 is we know it’s
a 10-game season, and we have two really good opponents at the start,”
Galbreath said. “We knew we’d need to get better and continue to do that every
game, and our goal is when we hit our stride in district, we’ll be a whole
better team than we are right now. That was our goal from Day 1, and that
hasn’t changed any.”

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